"Chinatown"

Merge

Artists:

Over the course of eight LPs, Destroyer's Dan Bejar has constructed a self-referential world that allows him to circle back on names, places, and even his own song and album titles. Close followers of his knotty body of work may give a knowing smile at the basic structure of "Chinatown", which recalls the easy jangle of "Painter in Your Pocket", from 2006's Rubies. But for all the references, Bejar never quite repeats himself. So this first peek at Destroyer's forthcoming ninth full-length, Kaputt, is a serious shift from Rubies' golden Astral Weeks-isms, instead taking on the form of muted, horn-laden jazz bathed in soft, strummy light. If 2008's Trouble in Dreams was the sound of songs smoldering in the process of decay, then "Chinatown" is the smoke rising from those ruins.

Another significant shift that's immediately noticable on "Chinatown": the addition of a female vocalist, Sibel Thrasher, from Bejar's native city of Vancouver. Her voice takes on a plaintive tone when backing up Bejar's own understated singing style, but her mere presence is significant. In a 2006 interview with Matt LeMay, Bejar stated that he preferred "drunk" Jim Morrison to "acid" Jim Morrison, and indeed, some of his most memorable statements resemble that of a love-lost man drunkenly stumbling out of a bar, expressing his own solitary thoughts to no one in particular. When Thrasher joins Bejar on "Chinatown"'s repeated refrain-- "I can't walk away/ You can't walk away"-- it's like the man in question isn't alone anymore, and the emotional stakes are even higher.